By Special Correspondent.
It is 6 months now that the 34thAnnual General Body Meeting of Gulf Goans Hotels Company was held in Panaji at Hotel Mandovi where election for the Board members was held. Since this election gave defeat to the important members of the WC (Wilson Coelho) panel, this panel of WC refused to accept the verdict of the Share holders gracefully and to turn this verdict upside down illegally, played a sort of rigging game but opponents put a check on the dirty move of WC panel. This matter finally was put into the hands of ROC (Registrar of Company) who will be the final authority to decide. The WC panel even brought a special lawyer from Bombay to fight for them in front of the ROC but nothing worked in favour of WC panel. However, it is not disclosed who paid the hefty fees for this lawyer. At an appropriate time this issue has to be raised appropriately by the appropriate persons in the Board.
While this issue is still in the hands of ROC for the final verdict, the Board remained non-functional leading to the messy situation in the Hotel Goan Heritage. Justine as de jure Chairman of the Board and WC as de facto Chairman, Hotel administration and other activities are controlled by both these gentleman who are also remote controlled by Wilson Rodrigues the defeated candidate in the last Board election. Since WC wants Rodrigues in the Board, WC is playing all the dirty tricks to bring Rodrigues inside thru the back door. He thinks he is the whole and sole of the company when his contribution in this company is not something extraordinary. If this company came into existence and developed it was only because of its initiator Vincente D’Souza and first Chairman Flav Pimenta backed by all the Board members. WC is shamelessly taking credit for himself for the efforts put in by others.
It is dangerous to trust and rely on WC because his past record in Kuwait was very bad. He is very destructive man responsible for the destruction of one old Goan Association known as Kuwait Goans and also responsible for the calamities in Goan Welfare Society-Kuwait whose huge fund he tried to swallow for himself and his other two colleagues. He was known to have duped Kuwait Goan Evacuees in 1991 with a huge amount of money with a false promise to take them back to Kuwait after the liberation of Kuwait. Besides, in Kuwait he was publicly humiliated for trying to have sex forcibly with one Kuwait Goan young girl.
Recently, the company has issued the 4th Newsletter which was signed by Justine Fernandes as Chairman but surprisingly it is also signed by the WC as “Chairman, 34thAnnual General Meeting”. It is wrong on the part of Chairman Justine to allow WC to sign such an important company document when WC is only a Board Member in the company. If unnecessary liberty is given to WC of course illegally then there is every possibility for him to grab the whole hotel for him only because he is genius in cunningness. For this reason all the concerned members of the Board and Shareholders must clip his dirty ambitions immediately by calling a meeting of anti-WC panel that is more interested in the wellbeing of the company. Besides, all the Shareholders who backed anti-WC panel deserve explanation from their panel of current status.
During his last so many years in the Board WC has not contributed anything for the development of this company just like the Chairman, on the contrary both of them prevented the new energetic directors from creating better avenues. Both are useless and both are shameless and as such they should be thrown out of the Board otherwise they will destroy the company.
As it is, the Newsletter quotes having discussed the topic of leasing the Hotel to a third party. This is a very bad initiative to take in the absence of the full fledged functional Board. It is now imperative for all the Shareholders who are interested in the well being of the Hotel to devise some methods even by approaching the ROC to clip the wings of WC and Chairman Justine who is fit for nothing inspite of getting hefty monthly salary of Rs. 40,000/-plus Car and VIP food on duty.
At this critical juncture, the major Share holders such as Sam Alphonso and others must show their capacity to intervene and put things into order. Mr. Alphonse and others who gave their voting proxies to WC panel should accept their fault to give their proxies to the wrong and cunning persons. If WC panel was upright, it would accept the fair result originally declared in favour of Non-WC Panel.